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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kroh" data-source="post: 2274317" data-attributes="member: 16768">Chapter 2: Heavy Breathing        Pain.  It was the pain one feels when going for a long run or swimming right after eating.  It was the pain that some one felt when punched in the gut.  It felt like any or all of these pains except for it was magnified by a factor of ten and then some.      Mike looked down at his abdomen as he continued to try and pry open the ballistic vest hidden under his shirt.  The vest had done its job, sort of.  It had been hit by a round meant for his partner, Sarah, who sat next to him rocketing the car they now drove in down the empty streets of a normally busy town.  The bullet had fragmented when it hit the vest and perforated the it causing some very uncomfortable bleeding.  The splintered vest had meshed together and Mike was trying to cut down the cloth side of the vest with a pocketknife in order to free himself from it.      “You do know this is a rental and if you bleed all over the seat I won’t get my deposit back?”  Sarah was good at making a heavy situation lighter.  Red hair framed a face that could burn away even the heaviest of clouds over a situation.  Mike was grateful for the good cheer    “I’ll have to owe you,” Mike tried to sound optimistic.  The bullet had hit him in the lower right abdomen and from his experience in the military he knew that the vest had saved his life but the bullet had cracked some ribs.  The scoring of the protective plates had dug into him and was now causing him to bleed a bit.  The bleeding was not severe but it could get worse if not bound soon.  And the jostling of the car at one hundred and fifty kilometers per hour was causing the shorn plates to cut deeper every time he moved.  “Any chance of slowing down a bit?”    An explosion of glass from the back of the car sent shards flying into the front.  The sound of intermittent gunfire could be heard from behind and a tassel of lights rounded a bend of the last street they had passed to follow in close pursuit.  “Guess that answers that question.”    Sarah hit the emergency brake and spun the car into a tight turn until the nose of the car faced those of her pursuers.  Rigging the gears into reverse and flooring the pedal she began to rocket down the street backwards.  “Gun please,” she said to Mike with no more concern than asking for a drink or a snack.  Mike placed the gun in her palm and she transferred it into her left hand and began firing out of her window.  Two controlled shots pierced a large box next to what looked like a communications poll and the object exploded in a shower of sparks and flame.  The rupture blew down the poll and knocked it into the lead chase car smashing it into pulp.  The other two cars behind rammed into the first and the pursuit was ended when the first car erupted into a ball of flame.  Another controlled turn had the car in the right again.    Mike had stopped working on the vest and looked in disbelief at his partner.  “Who taught you how to shoot like that?”    “Funny thing, that.  Real HOT guy with a hole in his belly taught me.”    “You think I’m hot?”    “Well, no, I was trying to make you feel better.  Did it work?”The car began to slow as Sarah tried to make them look less conspicuous.  She knew that on closer inspection any security force would see the bullet holes and ruptured transplast windshield and know something was wrong.  But she also knew that doing one hundred and fifty in a fifty-kph zone would definitely attract attention.  “Now all we got to do is find a safe place to put in to get that thing off of you and make sure that we can get our…”A behemoth of plasteel and duramar, the giant tractor trailer truck plowed into the small sedan with the force of a hurricane.   Air curtains and bags along with fire retardant gel deployed into the cabin of the car to protect the occupants even as the frame of the car bent along the grill of the truck.  The car was being pushed sideways against the tires.  The tires soon ruptured sending sparks into the air as the car squealed along its new course.  The truck continued to push until it reached a dividing wall that separated a walkway from a ten-meter drop.    The car broke through the thin wall and toppled into the empty street below.  Cart wheeling once as it fell the car landed on the front part of the passenger side.  A second blast of impact and fire stopping gel shot through the car to protect the occupants from harm as the car came to an abrupt stop.  All went quiet at the back of the street as the City itself was holding its breath.  A half a minute later the nose of the truck disappeared from the wall as it backed out onto the street proper.  An agent in gray battle fatigues with a utility belt around his waist and dark glasses jumped from the driver’s seat and walked over to peer down onto the street.  Pressing on the side of the frames of the glasses he intoned, “Two, this is eight, nothing on visual and nothing on either low light or thermal. ““Excuse me, Sir…” The agent turned around to notice the original driver of the truck cautiously approaching toward him.  “If you have no further use for my rig I really should get it back to the yard.”“You have the thanks of a grateful nation citizen! Good work!”  The driver looked at him with astonished relief and gratitude and caught the offered keys.  “My badge number is ‘44371.’  Any questions you can call this number.”  Handing a business card to the citizen he turned to walk back into his own car.  “Two this is eight, I am going to go down and make sure this is over.”Next: Launch</blockquote>

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